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National | Health

Seven new Covid-19 cases including a student

Seven new cases of Covid-19 have been reported today, including one imported case and six community cases.

Public Health director Dr Caroline McElnay says the community cases are all linked to the Auckland cluster, including a student from Mt Albert Grammar School.

"The Auckland Regional Public Health is working with the school. The student has not been at school since August 12,” McElnay says.

The school has sent a letter to staff and students with more details.

"The school has taken all reasonable steps to follow health advice and minimise risk, and it will be open on August 31," the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

The other five new community cases are household contacts of previously reported cases as well as one linked via the workplace, McElnay says.

The imported case is a woman in her twenties who arrived on August 22 from Turkey via London and Hong Kong.

She has been staying at a quarantine hotel, Sudima in Christchurch, and tested positive for Covid-19 on day three of her time in managed isolation.

Patients in hospital

There are 10 people in hospital with Covid-19. Two are in Auckland City Hospital, four in Middlemore, three at North Shore Hospital and one in Waikato.

Eight of those people are on a ward and one person in Middlemore is in intensive care, as is one person in North Shore.

Eight people associated with the Mt Roskill Evangelical Fellowship Church have tested positive for Covid-19.

“All eight cases have epidemiological links to each other as they attended common events," McElnay says. "Three of these cases have been genomically linked to the Auckland community cluster, and the epidemiological link to the main cluster remains under investigation.”

There have been 2,455 close contacts of cases, of which 2404 have been contacted and are self-isolating, she says.

“We are in the process of contacting the rest.”

There are 159 people linked to the community cluster at the Auckland quarantine hotel including 85 who have tested positive and their household contacts.

Fifteen people have recovered from Covid-19 so there are 126 active cases in Aotearoa, of which 11 are imported. The number of confirmed cases is 1,351.